(aka "Island of the Fishmen' or 'L'isola
degli uomini pesce" or "Screamers" or "Island of Mutations" or
"Something Waiting in the Dark" )

directed by Sergio Martino
Italy 1979

A
lifeboat carrying a group of convicts and the ship's doctor
Claude (Claudio Cassinelli) crashes against some rocks in
the fog. The survivors make their way to an island inhabited
by wealthy Edmond Rackham (Richard Johnson), beautiful
Amanda (Barbara Bach), her scientist father (Joseph Cotten),
a voodoo priestess (Beryl Cunningham, THE WEEKEND MURDERS),
and a horde of natives. Although warned away by Amanda, the
convicts and Claude are given shelter by Rackham. When one
of the convicts disappears (after trying to rape Amanda),
Claude starts investigating and believes that Edmond and
Amanda are hiding something (the titular fishmen, I'm
guessing, given the title). Filmed at the same time as Lucio
Fulci's ZOMBIE and utilizing the same locations (and lead
Johnson who would co-star with Bach and Cassinelli in
Martino's follow-up THE GREAT ALLIGATOR aka BIG ALLIGATOR
RIVER), ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN is low on gore and nudity but
entertaining nonetheless. Martino regular Giancarlo
Ferrando's scope cinematography and Massimo Antonello
Geleng's production design (except maybe the fishmen) add to
the atmosphere.

The export edition of ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN was available
pretty much everywhere else but the United States since
Roger Corman's New World Pictures acquired the film, cut it
down and tried to market it as a slasher called SOMETHING
WAITING IN THE DARK. When it did not sell, Corman had Miller
Drake shoot a prologue (in Panavision to match the
Techniscope ratio) featuring Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer
among others coming to the island in search of gold and
being gorily killed by the fishmen (featuring far superior
effects by Chris Walas of Cronenberg's THE FLY) - the
creatures themselves in this opening scene were also
superior to the original creations seen elsewhere in the
film - and was retitled SCREAMERS. The SCREAMERS version was
promoted as featuring a scene in which a man was turned
inside out and footage was specially shot for the trailer.
When audiences complained that it did not occur in the film,
footage from the trailer was spliced into theatrical prints
(as such, that footage was not present in the inter-positive
used for Embassy Entertainment's VHS release).

No Shame's disc features a
dual-layer anamorphic transfer with English and Italian mono
(and remixed 5.1 in the latter). The English audio is clear but
has not been pitch-corrected for PAL speedup and Johnson's voice
is noticeably higher-pitched. A 60 minute interview with
director Martino, Fishmen designer/art director Massimo
Antonello Geleng (THE STENDHAL SYNDROME) who shows off some
beautiful color production sketches, and producer Luciano
Martino has no English subtitles. An Italian trailer and photo
gallery round out the package. MYA's NTSC DVD also features an
anamorphic progressive transfer. The image has a lower bitrate
and is a bit softer but colors are similarly vibrant. The only
extras are a trailer with English subtitles and photo gallery.
The optional Italian audio on the MYA disc has no accompanying
subtitles (an annoying MYA trait). The DVD menus on the MYA also
have the same template program look with a crowded main menu in
place of setup and special features submenus. Visually, I would
lean towards the Italian release with more natural grain but the
MYA disc's correct projection speed allows for the correct audio
pitch. The NoShame disc has recently gone out of print (the
German release is long out of print) so the MYA disc may be the
most accessible.

The English-dubbed export version was first released on DVD by
the German label Marketing Films in an anamorphic transfer (also
featuring Italian and German audio) paired with Martino's TV
sequel THE FISHMEN AND THEIR QUEEN. A French DVD from Neo
Publishing features a shorter interview with Martino along with
a 20 minute featurette with input from Geleng and
cinematographer Giancarlo Ferrando but there are no subtitles
and no English audio for the feature. It is unfortunate the
SCREAMERS version (mentioned above in the movie review) was not
also made available (or at least the trailer) but that version
is still part of the New World Pictures catalog and may have
been sub-licensed to Buena Vista.